Number 1585: Man of the atom

By way of announcement, beginning with the month of June I am cutting my posts by 25%, going from four postings a week to three. I will post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Many of you won’t even notice. It is time to cut back on the work. And yes, this is work. Nobody pays me, but it’s work.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled post...

Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom was created by Gold Key comics to compete against the popular superheroes of the day. At the time I liked the first three issues, finding them well drawn in a more sophisticated, illustrative style, but lost interest when Dr. Solar gained a costume. I just didn’t think he could go toe-to-toe with what was coming from Marvel Comics. But I was wrong; the costume was what fans were clamoring for.

Jerry Bails, the godfather of comics fandom in the early '60s, had a letter in Doctor Solar Man of the Atom #7 in 1964, praising Gold Key for putting Dr. S. in a costume. Jerry was a bit more conservative about villains. He said, “Nothing destroys a super-hero faster than fantastic villains.” I’m reasonably certain the readers of superheroes wanted those fantastic villains...as Marvel Comics had proved.

The story is from that aforementioned issue #7. Script credited to Otto Binder by the Grand Comics Database, and art attributed to Frank Bolle.

Here Come the Fanboys

It started, as did many things in that simpler era, with a letter. A young man wrote to Julius Schwartz, editor at DC Comics, inquiring as to the availability of back issues of All-Star Comics, a long-defunct DC title from the 1940s. Schwartz did not have any to sell the young man, but he did remember that the writer of those old issues, Gardner Fox, had kept his own copies.

The young man was named Jerry Bails, and following up on Schwartz's suggestion, he negotiated a deal to buy Fox's collection. Bails had read All-Star as a kid and amassed a decent collection before the title was canceled. Now he was looking to recover the issues he'd lost over the years and find the ones that he'd never read before.

If all this sounds a little strange, remember that back in those days there were no comics stores (forget about Ebay). Comics were sold in lots of little mom and pop newsstands and drugstores. Nobody advertised back issues in comics magazines, and so amassing a collection of older issues was pretty much a hit or miss proposition, involving checking garage sales and used bookstores.

And then a very odd and significant thing happened. Another young man wrote to Schwartz, also asking about back issues of All-Star. Schwartz referred him to Fox, who referred him to Bails.

Bails was so thrilled to discover that there was another adult out there who liked old issues of All-Star that he sent the second young man, Roy Thomas, duplicate copies of several of his issues. Over the next several months, Thomas and Bails wrote back and forth dozens of times.

Not long after this, Julius Schwartz resurrected the concept of a team of superheroes, this time named the Justice League of America. He incorporated the two superheroes he had relaunched thus far, the Barry Allen Flash and the Hal Jordan Green Lantern and rounded out the membership with three existing DC heroes, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter.

Bails and Thomas were enthusiastic, but they had seen that comic books come and go. Bails wanted the Justice League to last, and so, during a trip to New York, he suggested to Schwartz that he start up a little newsletter for fans of the JLA, to help market the comics.

It was one of those situations where the stars were perfectly aligned. As it happened, Schwartz knew all about fan newsletters, because back in the 1930s he had started one for the then-new science fiction fandom. His two teen co-editors of Time Traveler had been Mort Weisinger and Forrest Ackerman (later the publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland). He told Bails that his project should be called a fanzine (combining fan and magazine), and started publishing the full addresses of letter writers so that Bails and Thomas could compile a database of older comic book fans for their market. Schwartz would provide Bails with information about upcoming stories so they would have a constant supply of copy.

Alter-Ego #1 (cover shown above) was the result. As you can see, it's something of a parody of the cover of Brave and Bold #29:

Bails opened with a mission statement that is largely what you'd expect, but he did throw a rather large bone to Schwartz and DC: he sprinkled cryptograms throughout the issue that could only be decoded with a key that Bails promised to send anyone who sent him a copy of their subscription label to Justice League of America.

The next few pages were devoted to previews of coming issues of the Schwartz-edited magazines, including a few classics:

If that format looks familiar to you, it should. DC used much the same layout for their Direct Currents house ads in the mid-late 1960s:

There followed feature articles on the Golden Age villain the Wizard (by Bails) and the Spectre (by Thomas), and Wonder Woman (Bails). The issue closed with the JLA parody shown on the cover; here's the splash page by Thomas:

Alter Ego was published sporadically throughout the 1960s; Julius Schwartz recommended it in the letters column of JLA #8, sending circulation soaring:

Thomas revived Alter-Ego as a glossy, slick magazine in the 1990s that is still published today. It's a terrific read; fans will love the special issues devoted to their favorite artists. My copies of the issues dedicated to Dick Sprang (#19) and Will Eisner (#48) are especially treasured.

Bails had already conceived of the next phase of fandom: the Alley Awards, kind of like the Academy Awards but for comic books. Compiling the votes for the awards led to the "Alley Tally", an early gathering of comic book fans, that led to the earliest comic book conventions.

The influence of organized fandom on comic books has been enormous. The comics industry drew much of its next generation of talent (especially writers) from the ranks of the fans. Roy Thomas went on to become a major force at Marvel (succeeding Stan Lee as Editor) and DC. E. Nelson Bridwell, Tony Isabella, Mike Friedrich, Martin Pasko, Jim Shooter and many others started their careers as fans. As the demand for back issues grew, comics companies began (starting around 1965) to emphasize the collectible nature of their products.

Note: I realize I have barely skimmed the surface of this topic. For more details on the birth of Alter Ego, see this article by Bill Schelly. I drew on other sources as well; Julius Schwartz's Man of Two Worlds was especially helpful.

Justice League of America #2

As the story begins, Green Lantern is attending a magicians' convention. Why? Well, on the story level we'll assume it's because he's a fan of legerdemain, but from the writer's (Gardner Fox) standpoint, it's so that he can witness an important event. A girl is summoned apparently from nowhere, but when the magician reveals the secret, it turns out that the trap door she was supposed to come up through was locked. So how did she arrive?

Note in particular that the light switch doesn't work. Indeed, none of man's scientific gadgets work, from planes to trains to automobiles. What can have happened? Well, once the JLA has gathered, Green Lantern makes the obvious deduction; magic works, but science doesn't. We see the extent of the fabulous JLA library:

Meanwhile, in the magic dimension, we learn what caused the sudden change:

The concept of two different Earths, with strong similarities but important differences, was of course the idea behind the multiverse of Earths 1, 2, 3, etc. Note in particular that this story predates Flash of Two Worlds by about 8 months.

Merlin, the magician, quickly learns who's behind the sudden change:

As those three are the only people on their world to understand the application of science, they quickly loot the planet of its treasures. After a test of magic, the JLA summons Merlin to their HQ. He explains the background of the story, and the JLA members split into teams to take on the three villains:

This was the basic template that Fox used for the JLA adventures: Identify the menace, break the team into parts, and then have the team get back together again for the denouement. It was also the template for the old JSA stories in All-Star, although there (because the Golden Age books had more pages), Fox had let them star in their own solo adventures.

The team-up concept is promising, but Fox doesn't really deliver. Green Lantern fights a manticore, while the Martian Manhunter battles a Griffin. They only really join forces to capture Saturna and to prevent him from destroying a part of the magic spell that will return our Earth to the science dimension.

Wonder Woman and the Flash do cooperate more in their capture of the Troll King, but Batman, Superman and Aquaman split up, and as it happens, the Sea King is the one who finally captures Simon Magus. So all that remains is for Merlin to cast the spell to return our Earth to the science dimension, right?

Well, no, there is the problem shown on the cover to handle. But it turns out that the monster the JLA are trying to prevent escaping into the magical Earth is none other than:

Comments: A pretty standard Gardner Fox plot, with art by Mike Sekowsky.

The JLA Mailbox includes a letter from Jerry Bails, Jr (I assume written by his father and possibly posted by Roy Thomas):

Bails pere, of course, was a major figure in the then-nascent fandom movement, and had been a longtime reader of the JSA stories in All Star Comics. From correspondence between him and Roy, we know that many of the early letters to the editor in JLA were written by him under various pseudonyms.

Correction: As noted by Jonathan L. Miller in the comments, Jerry Bails, Jr, was himself the actual fan. I knew that Bails lived in Michigan for most of his adult life, but he was apparently originally from Kansas City.

Justice League of America #16

I saw that this comic was mentioned in Tony Isabella's book as one of the 1000 Comic Books You Must Read, and thought it would be worth reviewing in some detail. As you can see, my copy of JLA #16 is not quite mint, so I don't think I'll be sending it off to CGC anytime in the near future.

The story starts with the various members of the JLA heading towards a meeting. Wonder Woman is flying there in her invisible plane, while Green Arrow is taking the Arrow Plane, and they meet, as usual, over the town of Three Corners. But they notice something odd down below.

When they exit their planes, they find themselves compelled to dance along with the rest of the civilians, as does the Atom, who emerges from a local phone line that has been tapped into by a repairman. Things get a little more interesting as a group of crooks target the local bank while everybody's busy. But Green Arrow spots a chance to grab Wonder Woman's rope and tosses it into her hand. Then WW lassos GA and forces him to stop the crooks.

Meanwhile, Green Lantern, Batman and the Martian Manhunter have similarly met up along the way to their meeting, and stop to break up a payroll robbery. Once again the weird music compels them to dance, and once again the group teams up to defeat the crooks. Batman frees some silver iodide crystals from his utility belt, and MM sends them up into some nearby clouds. As the rain pours down around GL's feet, J'onn freezes it, making it impossible for Green Lantern to dance. Thus freed from the spell, Hal is able to capture the crooks.

Superman, Aquaman and the Flash have a similar adventure, and again team up to defeat the crooks. It appears that all of the gangs have been using the musical abilities of the Maestro to pull off their robberies. As they compare notes, the Atom sadly muses:

They head off in search of the Maestro, whom they have located in a general area of caves. Sure enough, they find him at his keyboard, but this time they are wearing earplugs so that his music should have no effect. But:

The Maestro reveals that the bubbles he has the JLA trapped within are specially devised for each member. Superman's bubble contains Kryptonite, while GL's bubble saps his willpower and Aquaman's prevents him from telepathically summoning his finny friends, etc. It appears he has finally won, and as we go to the third chapter of the story, the JLA looks defeated. But:

Yep, it was all a bit of fan fiction by "Jerry Thomas". Of course, Jerry Thomas is a composite name, created from two big fans of the Justice League, Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas. So the JLA spends much of the third chapter trying to figure out how they might have been clued into the real scheme of the Maestro. And, not too surprisingly, it is the Atom who figures it out:

Armed with the knowledge that the music was not the real means of hypnotizing the JLA, they would have approached the Cavern of Deadly Spheres with a secret weapon of their own:

And sure enough, they would have defeated the Maestro.

Comments: Although I am not usually a fan of these kinds of "trick" stories, I must confess that I enjoyed this one thoroughly, especially now that I know a little more about the Bails/Thomas/Julius Schwartz relationship.